December 2004

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 The last days of November Donger and I endured the ultimate test of bafflement. The first fly rolled onto Lake Arthur’s surface at 11:30 hours that day, at 19:30 hours we made contact with the first fish – and lost him. That’s 8 hours without seeing a boil, a rise, a follow or getting a touch. That’s not only 8 hours, that’s 8 bloody hours, 8 back breaking hours, 8 frustrating hours, 8 long hours – that’s seventy-five-minute-hours.

I could go on, and I will (just kidding) but we had to reassure each other that we’re not that bad a fly-fisher. That we’re making no mistakes, that we tried everything from dry to wet from deep to top, from fast to slow retrieve, that it was the fish’s fault for not wanting to feed.

Perseverance paid off in the long run, because in hour nine and ten we caught 6 fish and lost as many.

If I had photographed the tally you would have been entitled to say ‘ah he used the same picture as shown in the November Diary, the one with the gum beetles’. Yes it was an identical score although the fish were a smidgen bigger, yet none of them had any food in their stomach; maybe they were still recovering from that gum beetle feast fest?

But now it was December, it was the month of the club fly fishing competition. At stake was the Lindsay Haslem Trophy, named after the founder of our fly-fishing club. What no prizes? No, just honour - ‘your honour’. A slice of polished Tasmanian Huon Pine and a golden (well yellow) brass plate showing name, year and point score. (Picture #1) Well who wants to win a brand new boat and motor anyway if you’ve got already “the ultimate fishing machine”?

The weather forecast was for showers and wind, a combination nobody likes, but then hey the weather boys could be wrong, just this once?

It turned out to be a glorious weekend, fine, fine and 21C0 (at 1200 metres) and 5-10 knots NE to boot. That sounded pretty fine to me!

The club agreed at the last meeting that the competition would start Saturday 12:00 noon and closed on Sunday 16:00hrs. That allowed us to fish a dusk and dawn stint and if you were keen (or stupid) enough, you could fish all night, but I think nobody was that keen (or stupid).

In most official fly fishing competitions the catch and release rule applies. To avoid let’s call it - politically incorrect – cheating (I really don’t know why this is politically incorrect since most politicians practice it correct), each shore fly fisher is assigned an observer who’s function it is to sit out of casting range and sleep. Consider that these guys get up at quarter to sparrow’s fart to have breakfast and get to their assigned location before the sun licks the horizon. When the ‘observee’ catches a fish, the observer swings cautiously into action.

He verifies that the fish is hooked in accordance with the rules (forward of the gills – a foul hooked fish doesn’t count). He measures the fish with an official measuring ruler (supplied) and enters the details onto the record sheet. Once the fish is released the observer resumes his low maintenance position.

These are the basics of it; it’s been a long time since I’ve been an observer so don’t take this as the gospel of St Andrew or was it St Christopher of Tasmania?

If you get rid of the catch and release rule, things become much easier. Catch your fish and bring it at the closing time to the measuring/weighing point. Not to impair the eating quality of the fish, the club has decided that fish must be cleaned before weigh-in.

For those of you who are not familiar with the rules, they are as follows: Each fish of legal size attracts 100 points and one point is given for each millimetre length of each fish eg. A fish of 220-mm length (the minimum legal size) gives you 320 points (100 + 220). This system should reward the fly-fisher who catches most fish rather the lucky one who catches one big one.

The fisher with the most points wins. If two people have the same number of points, the one with the most fish wins. If both have the same number of points and the same number of fish, the fish get weighed and the one with the highest total weight wins. If both have the same number of points and the same number of fish and the same weight the club supplies free beer, which the finalists/contestants have to drink. The one last standing without having a piss wins. To avoid cheating, neither contestant is allowed to wear waders while drinking is in progress. Our system seems to work, because to-date nobody ever made it to the free beer stage.

Some competitions don’t allow a competitor to fish the ‘competition water’ the week preceding the competition. We are not that fussy, and further more to get a good camping spot; it is advisable this time of the year to front up early. Most of us went up on Friday morning. Light wind and the warm temperatures reinforced our disbelief in accurate weather forecasting it also encouraged the duns to rise. By lunchtime I hooked a nice 4lb brown (clean) on a dun. It did not count for the competition, but it counted at the Pre-Christmas BBQ.

President Mole had sent me some extremely beautifully tied duns, which I thought were in the “realistic” category (see book) and I was keen to ‘aqua test’ them. So with a meter in between my shaving brush and Mole’s dun they were sitting smack, when a fish about the size of the one I had caught, swam up to Moles fly. I took a strike for granted and was ready, but the fly did not pass the close inspection criteria. The fish went down, only to come immediately up again to inspect my more abstract version of the dun. Again, it failed the close inspection test and the fish just sprinted off. Was there suntan oil on the fly or maybe just some idiot fish who did not appreciate a good a la carte’ meal when he saw one? During the next hour while the duns kept popping up and found my boat safer than the water’s surface, (Picture # 2a) numerous times fish struck at either fly/dun with frightening speed but I could not make contact. I changed both flies with two other versions of duns to no avail.

If they don’t take the imitation dun, try something entirely opposite I thought. Greenwell’s Glory – no, red tag – no, anything else – no, anything else - else? – no.

After early dinner it was out again, ready for the evening rise this time with my favourite wet caddis. When I returned tired and ready to hit the sack, there was no fish on board. Just the lonely four pounder in the esky from the afternoon. Not a good omen for the competition. Saturday morning 04.00 hrs came and to keep the sane people asleep, the trout whisperer (boat) sneaked out, powered by ‘cyclops’ (electric motor).

Once I had sufficient distance between the sleeping beauty on shore, the Yamaha took over and I went quickly, yet quietly, back into the ‘cow paddock’ or so I thought.

The air was fresh and the water warm a recipe for fog, which soon started to create an eerie canopy, visibility became a major issue. (Picture #3) I couldn’t imagine that fish care when visibility is down to 50metres (Picture #4), they are hungry, fog or not or so I thought. They might not have cared about the fog; they certainly didn’t care about breakfast. By the time the air temperature increased and the fog lifted it was time to radio in and ‘order’/request/plead/beg and grovel for my breakfast. “How many…over?” Don’t you hate that question if the answer has to be ‘none’? “What…three hours and no fish… over?”, “Is breakfast ready… over?”, “Why don’t you sleep in…like normal people - over?”, “Where is my coffee… over?”, “How would you like to wear it… over?”, “Negative, the usual, white one sugar, just leave it in the cup, I wear it internally… over!”

At 11.30 hr I tootled across to the club campsite and signed in for the competition and returned to the cow paddock with the ‘you know whom – the coffee queen’. Duns were rising again and I went double dry. One of Moles duns and my possum shaving brush had to sit it out. It was 12.44 hr when the reel went berserk; I never knew what hit me. YES, it was competition time and we were ON. Close to a weed bed the fish just reeled line off and flattened the strap weed in the process. I was afraid to loose him, thinking of all those knots in the leader. Anna started the engine up and we gave chase while the reel still screamed and the backing started to show. And then there was nothing - f@#!$%^&! I stripped line in as fast as I could – shit! No – he is still there – cut the engine! Ah f@#!$%^& he’s gone, no I’ve still got him on! What the hell was going on? And then we saw it; two fish had taken a fly each. One second they were pulling away together, the next they were going in opposite directions to each other, then they were both coming towards me. One got airborne, then the other, it was better than a Federal Election.

Well, for the fifth time in my fishing career I landed a double header but for the first time I got them both in the net together. (Picture #5) Well there were about 1000 points in the ‘can’ so to speak. How much better could it get? Well, it didn’t, it went ‘much more worse’. It called for an early dinner (they call it tea in Bracknell, because they call lunch ‘dinner’ – don’t ask anybody why, it’s that second head I think).

Before the sun turned orange I was back out on the water for the evening rise. The old reliable caddis back and fishing close to the shore I hooked and netted two fish with 5 casts and then as a magnificent sun set unfolded before me (picture #6), a third fish came on board, against his will and not without my persuasion.

That was five fish, not good, but hey there was another day or the best part of a day anyway.

Sunday morning I sneaked out in the dark again, (picture #7) and the early morning could not have been different to yesterday. A sunrise lit the sky up in deep red and reflected in the water like a dooms day scenario. (Picture #8 & #9). ‘Glass-out’ is the term I have heard to describe the condition when the water is flat like a sheet of glass. No drift, so Cyclops had to move me along the shoreline at minimum speed. One cast into the shallow one into the deep, one into the shallow, one in …I fished wet and got a pan size fish on the caddis. Everything above legal-size counts and today was not HIS day.

After breakfast the wind came up to 10 knots or so. I used the onshore wind and figured that any food was going to be blown close into shore. I pounded the shoreline with a #7 weight forward floater (WF7F) with a caddis. The breaking waves and foam hiding my heavy line. The wind came at 450 to the shoreline and while the wind pushed me along and into the shore, the ‘cyclops’ kept me at casting distance. Fishing two kilometres of shoreline two fish fell to the caddis, but I lost one at the net and two had to be returned to grow bigger for next years competition. Intermittently fish would rise to the dun and a nice two pounder, took Mole’s dun. With increasing wind to 15 knots, it became more difficult to keep the boat at distance from the rocks and I decided to make for home, not without stopping at ‘the opening’ where the day had begun and where waters were sheltered. I needed to have another ‘fling’ with the dry.

I chose Moles dun and my ExP1 (Experimental Prototype one) - I had tied just one up for a ‘whisperers fly box’ discussion. Within seconds of setting the flies on the water a fish came up from the depth, took Moles dun, turned down deep into a weed bed and ‘spat me out’ - defiantly an “up yours buster” attitude. Well, they want to play dirty? That’s fine, no more ‘Mister Nice Guy’.

One boat either side of me were stripping ‘wets’, but I gave my duns a better chance. It didn’t take long and I had proven my point. A good size competition fish took my ‘ExP1’ (picture #10) and gave me another 500 points or so. With nine fish caught during the competition and 15:00 hours approaching I called it quits. I figured I had a good chance to be in the running and if not, the Christmas BBQ was secured anyway.

The final and official score recorded under Helmut Samerski was:

Maybe there was yet another trip possible before Christmas? Weather permitting!

But Christmas came too fast, mid summer in Tasmania. As the leading Yachts in the Sydney to Hobart 2004 race ploughed into Bass Straight battling rogue 9 meter waves gale force winds, with Mayday calls echoing across the ether, boats retiring because of smashed top and bottom gear, our local weather boys forecasted highland snow down to 800m. They were pretty right this time and you can imagine what that does to the insect life and feeding pattern of trout.

If you dream of a white Christmas, come to Tassie in summer but then you know already from my book how fickle and dangerous bushwalking in the highlands can be even in summer and how you can get into deep shi…snow.

With growing desperation, an approaching high pressure system, the end of the month and the end of the year only hours away (well 36 is hours) it was time to try one more time. So on Thursday the 30th of December at 12:45 hr the trout whisperer slipped down the trailer for the last time in the year 2004. By the time the boat drove back onto the trailer, at 21:30 that day a beautiful day at the lakes had come to an end. A beautiful sunset (picture #11) had closed a nice day on the lakes and not a single fish was caught. ‘Them are the breaks’!

If catching trout was easy, everybody would do it and catching a fish would loose all the excitement.

But for me/us, we are privileged to have had a beautiful day on a beautiful lake in a beautiful state.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year, safe boating, safe wading and above all

TIGHT LINES.

The Trout Whisperer

If you would like to contact me for comments or contributions click here: thetroutwhisperer@bigpond.com